1. Field
One embodiment of the present invention relates to a magnetic recording media and a magnetic recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in order to cope with further high density of the magnetic recording media, a discrete track recording media (DTR media) attracts attention. In the DTR media, adjacent recording tracks are separated by nonmagnetic materials so as to reduce magnetic interference between them. When such a discrete track recording media is manufactured, magnetic film patterns corresponding to signals of servo regions should desirably be formed together with magnetic film patterns which form recording tracks by imprinting using a stamper. If the patterns are formed in this manner, the cost can be reduced since a servo-track writing process can be eliminated.
As a typical imprinting method, the following method is known (U.S. Pat. No. 5,772,905). Firstly, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), which is a thermoplastic resin, is coated on a silicon substrate as resist, and heat cycle nano-imprinting is carried out using a stamper to transfer the patterns of the stamper to the resist. After the stamper is removed, residues remained in recesses between resist patterns are removed by oxygen reactive ion etching (RIE) to expose the surface of silicon. Then, etching is carried out using the resist patterns as masks to form protruded patterns of silicon.
However, when the above method is used to manufacture the DTR media as it is, it has been found that problems may arise in the deterioration of thermal fluctuation resistance specific to the magnetic recording, or problems may arise that the surface comes to have poor flatness when a nonmagnetic material is filled in the recesses between magnetic film patterns.